The museum appears as an elite world. I felt like I was getting privileged glimpses of everything, from the work of the conservators to marketing meetings to the silent deliberations of fussy curators. I loved the thrilling tracking shot of an archivist using a kick scooter to travel through a series of long rooms. In one excruciating sequence, we see beads of sweat form on the forehead of a restorer as he manipulates the delicate innards of a 16th century mechanical ship. A tense meeting of museum guards exposes closed circles within the museum itself. Recurring peeks into the office of a long-time curator coalesce into a gentle story by the end of the film.

The festival screening was full. Before the film started, a woman repeatedly demanded that the air conditioning be turned on, "to get some air circulating, because we're all middle-aged here." Near the end of the film, a man in the back row, who probably has difficulty behaving in public, made comments aloud about Habsburgs & Germans.